Resource Box

Branding on the Web with Social Media

2007-11-18T22:09:00.000-05:00

Blogs, social bookmarking and social networking sites are allowing entrepreneurs to build powerful small business brands online. Web branding levels the playing field and lets you connect with prospects and customers in a way traditional marketing can't.

Finding what your small business should be about

2007-02-02T22:56:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about how so many large company employees are unsatisfied, frustrated and just fed up by their corporate job and the drudgery of their daily grind. Way too many people are sick and tired of going to the office every day, listening to an incompetent boss, and having to deal with petty office politics and senseless company policy.

Reading through blogs and forums I noticed that one of the biggest frustrations of employees who want to leave the corporate world is not being able to discover what their true "calling" is, that activity that will let them earn a good living while making them feel a deep sense of purpose.

If this situation applies to you, I found this post in Pamela Slim's enlightening blog: Escape From Cubicle Nation that offers some good starting points.

I came up with another idea today, as I was cleaning and organizing my del.icio.us bookmarks: Going through your del.icio.us bookmarks is a great way to re-discover your interests and passions. If you don't have a del.icio.us bookmark file, I deeply encourage you to start building one. I assure you that you will learn something about yourself and that after a few weeks you will have a more clear picture of what the topics or activities are that may turn into a genuinely enjoyable and emotionally rewarding line of work for you.

Tech Tags: branding entrepreneurship

How to Make Money From Google Adsense

2007-01-09T23:00:00.000-05:00

It not uncommon to hear less than stellar reviews of Google’s Adsense program. Truth be told, making money with Google Adsense is not as easy or straightforward as most people think. There is a misconception that all we have to do to laugh all the way to the bank is to publish a bunch of articles, slap some Adsense code here and there and sit down to wait for our visitors to click away.

There is much more to Adsense than that. Adsense success depends on a multitude of factors which must come together to create a “perfect storm”, among them:

Blog topic: A product blog about car accessories or electronic gadgets will produce ads with better revenue per click than a blog about Greek mythology or medieval hunting habits.

Kind of traffic: If your visitors come from highly relevant search engine queries, your Adsense click through rates will likely be higher than if your traffic is mostly repeat visitors who are already trained to avoid your ads.

Position of the ads: Ads placed within the content area work better than ads buried at the bottom of a navigation column. Google even goes as far as sharing with everybody this heat map that shows the areas of the page that are likely to produce the best results.

Color of the ads: Some people advocate blending the colors of the Adsense ads with the colors of the site, under the pretense that by making it hard to determine if something is an ad or just a regular link you will generate more clicks. Others believe that using contrast is better, since it makes the ad stand out. You can determine what works best for you after some good old fashioned trial and error.

Size of your blog: Obviously, the more posts you write, the more Adsense impressions you will generate. If you post once a month and your blog has only twenty entries don’t expect great results. Hard work and consistency is key to build up content to the point that it generates enough traffic.

Before you rush to start blogging and filling up your pages with Adsense ads, I recommend that you first do some reading.

Probably the best place to start is these Google Adsense Optimization Tips from Google itself.

You should also read this extremely helpful and well thought eight step tutorial by Problogger.

I also recommend these Adsense tips, tricks and secrets by Graywolf, and this forum entry by a guy in Australia who writes about how he increased his Adsense revenue from $10 to $800 per week (and even shares with us the highly optimized template he uses to generate Adsense revenue from articles).

When you’re ready to read some eBooks, you can start with Joel Comm’s What Google Never Told You About Making Money with Adsense or The Definitive Guide to Google AdSense, by William Charlwood. Both are excellent and offer detailed, how-to advice.

As a footnote, in a significant new development, Blogger.com, the free blogging platform from Google, now lets you place Adsense ads without having to apply for a separate Adsense account.

Using forums to generate traffic to your blog

2007-01-07T23:39:00.000-05:00

Actively participating in forums and discussion groups is a great way to get relevant traffic to your blog. This excellent technique has somehow been underutilized since the days when the search engines decided to combat forum spam by implementing the “no follow” tag. Some people mistakenly assume that because a link doesn’t have search engine value it’s not valuable at all.

That is a big misconception. Links in forums attract precisely the kind of high quality, relevant traffic you’re looking for. In fact, one of my blogs receives almost 60% of its traffic from forum inbound links that I’ve patiently seeded in a few forums related to my theme.

One way to seed inbound links to your blog is by creating a signature file with a link to your blog, and always including it with your posts. Another one is to read through the different post threads and find common problems or questions. You can then research the solution or answer, write a post in your blog, and then direct forum readers to your blog. When you use this technique, I suggest that you turn off your signature file, so that your post doesn’t come across as self-serving.

Other forum strategy that generates a lot of traffic is to create a poll (most forums are run by the same software, most of which support polls). If the poll is interesting, it will draw a large number of readers, who will see the link to your blog in your signature file going when they access the poll.

After you’ve been doing this for a while, you’ll see that other forum members will have become habitual readers of your blog and will start to spontaneously link to it from their own posts. Other members will start bookmarking your best blog posts in social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us or digg.com. I’m sure that by now you see the potential. It’s a little bit of work, but it will pay off exponentially and will bring you plenty of relevant traffic for a long, long time.

Tech Tags: blog blogging linkbuilding forums social+bookmarking del.icio.us digg

Making your blog posts easier to read

2007-01-05T14:12:00.000-05:00

Reading online is harder, slower and more uncomfortable than reading on print. By following these easy tips your blog posts will be better laid out and more concise, and your readers’ experience more pleasant. Here they go:

Write less: Use 50% less words than you would use in print. Once you finish writing, go back and try to further reduce your word count.

Use plenty of contrast: black type on white background always works best.

Use headlines to break the discussion into several paragraphs. Breaking the discussion into small, manageable chunks makes things much easier for readers.

Web users don’t read: they scan. Use elements that facilitate scannability: bolding key words and phrases, and using bullet points are two examples of this technique.

Don't make your lines of text too long. With today’s high resolution screens, text that runs from one side of the screen to the other is very hard to read. Using a page layout with columns is a good way to keep the content area down to a width that makes reading comfortable.

Try to convey one idea per paragraph, three to four lines each.

Use hyperlinks to present complementary information instead of trying to include everything in the body of your post. Good bloggers use this technique a lot, not just to make their posts easier to read, but also to point readers to valuable resources and to give other bloggers credit for relevant content.

Don’t use a font that is too small. I recommend using 10pt. or higher, and using font types that have been specifically designed for reading on the web, like Verdana or Georgia.

Tech Tags: blogging copy+writing usability

Create a Branded Signature File for Outlook

2007-01-04T18:08:00.000-05:00

One of my pet peeves is to see how many people (even employees of Fortune 500 companies) use those cheesy Outlook stationary templates in their outbound email. Nothing screams “unprofessional” more than a fuchsia background with clouds and ribbons, or a fake ring bound effect on a yellow background to go with those important email messages.

The damage doesn’t stop there. Considering the hundreds of emails that even a small company sends out every day, this terrible habit is also a waste of a great branding opportunity. Both from the esthetic and branding points of view, it is best to go easy on colors and textures. Reading from a computer screen is difficult, so what works best is a plain white background with black typeface.

For typeface, I recommend a sans-serif font like Arial. If you insist on using a serif font, I recommend Georgia. Choose a font type and stick with it.

Now, as far as branding is concerned, I recommend creating a simple signature file (open Outlook, click on Tools-Options-Mail Format-Signatures-New and type down your information).

Your signature file should include your name and job title in the first two rows. Then, leave a blank row and insert a small version of your company logo (right click on the place where you want to put it, click Browse and pick a logo). Once you’ve placed your logo, go to the next row and include your contact information: address, phone, cell phone, fax, email address, skype or IM username (if you have one) and your website’s URL.

Set your signature file to pop up in new messages as well as in replies and forwards and you’re done. You’ve just turned your outgoing email into a powerful branding tool.

Tech Tags: branding internet+marketing small+business email Outlook Outlook+Express email+tips

Create a “Top Posts” List for Your Blog

2007-01-02T23:00:00.000-05:00

People love lists. That's why articles called “10 Fastest Ways to Do This” or “Top 5 Ways to Save on That” are so popular, and are sometimes even called “linkbait”. It is also the reason why books in the Best Sellers lists stay there so long: by being in the Best Sellers list, more people buy them, which only fuels more sales, reinforcing the position of the books on the list, making even more people buy them. Wash, rinse, repeat…

Here’s a tip to easily increase your blog’s page views, maximize your conversion rates and grow your subscription ranks: create a “Top 5 Posts” list, “Favorite Posts” list or “Most Viewed Posts” list and place it at a visible location in your blog’s side column. To build the list you can pick a mix of the most visited posts, posts that generate the majority of search engine queries leading to your site, posts that have some kind of multi-media feature (like a cool video) or, if you are using Adwords, posts that are more likely to convert well.

Tech Tags: blogging internet+marketing smm smo seo rss blogging+tips

Link to your Del.icio.us bookmarks from your blog

2007-01-02T18:14:00.000-05:00

The most successful bloggers are those who nurture and encourage the interaction between them and their readers. If your readers enjoy your blog, they will most likely want to know more about you. You can give them feedback about yourself in your Profile or your About Us pages. However, you can go beyond that by sharing your del.icio.us bookmarks with them.

By linking to your del.icio.us bookmarks you will give your readers a glimpse of your personal interests. By sharing with them the websites and blogs that you consider important, and giving them access to valuable tools and resources beyond your blog, you will strengthen the relashionship between you and your readers and get an edge over bloggers that are not doing it.

Tech Tags: blogging smm bookmarking del.icio.us marketing

Leverage your old site's content in your new blog

2006-12-31T00:24:00.000-05:00

If you’ve embraced web 2.0 you’ve probably replaced link exchange requests with social bookmarking, requests to subscribe to your email newsletter with RSS feed subscription buttons, and your old, static site with a lively, interactive blog.

There are still, however, ways in which you can leverage your old site’s content to generate traffic and support for your new blog. For example, place an RSS feed button and social bookmarking links in the most popular pages of your old site, and set the RSS feed button to point to your blog.

You can also write blog posts that link to relevant content on your old site for support. You can also use the copy in the resource box or by-lines of articles you may have written to create your profile in sites like Amazon, Yahoo! Answers, and forums or discussion groups where you usually participate.

If your old site has a good ranking and is well regarded with the search engines, pass along some of that authority to your new blog by linking to it from your old site.

Tech Tags: blogging seo smm internet+marketing link+building

How to Choose and Register a Domain Name

2006-12-27T18:55:00.000-05:00

Choosing your domain name is one of the most important decisions you will face when building your business. For years, the debate has centered around choosing either a Company Name Domain or a Keyword Domain.

Company Name Domain:

If we assume that, for example, you own a web design company located in Boston called Praxis Inc., you may want to register your company name as your domain name: praxis.com. One advantage is that your customers already know your company name and it will be easy for them to remember. Also, a company name domain looks professional when printed in collateral material.

The main disadvantage, especially if you are a small business, is that people won't be able to tell what you do based on your domain name, and it won’t help you very much with the search engines (since some of them use the domain name for cues on what the business does, and to determine its relevance to certain search terms).

Keyword Domain:

Keywords are generic terms related to your field that you believe search engine users will type in the search box to find a company like yours. Since a domain name is usually the anchor text used to link to a site, and anchor text was a very important factor in search engine placement until not so long ago, keyword domains were very popular for a while.

Search engines are evolving and now recognize that people have been abusing the use of keyword-only domains, so they have downgraded their importance in their search algorithms. Keyword domains, though, still have some advantages associated with the growing trend of web users typing a bunch of keywords in the address bar followed by “.com” in their efforts to find relevant websites.

The disadvantages of keyword domains from a branding perspective is that they tend to be long and hard to remember, and look awkward when printed in company collateral material. For example: boston-web-design-company.com may give you a slight edge over praxis.com when it comes to search engine placement or getting direct traffic, however, its branding disadvantages are obvious.

A good compromise, and the solution that I recommend, is to combine your company name with a keyword. For example: praxiswebdesign.com. That will give you the best of both worlds: brand recognition and keyword strength.

Final Tips:

If you are just opening a small business, choose your domain name before you choose your company name. Many times, people have registered their company and then found out that their company name is not available as a domain name.
By all means, secure a .com domain. It is the default extension and the first one that will come to mind to people trying to remember your domain name. You must try to register at least the three most common variations of your domain name: .com, .net and .org, to prevent unscrupulous competitors from benefiting from your brand equity.
Registering a domain doesn’t cost a lot of money. In fact, nowadays it is common to find domain names for less than $10 / year. I use Godaddy to register all my domains. (disclaimer: I am also a Godaddy affiliate). They have great prices and a very user-friendly interface.
Don’t register your domain name with your hosting company. Though it may be tempting to accept their “free” domain registration offer with your hosting package, if one day you want to change hosting companies they will make you jump through hoops to release your domain. Don’t play with your brand: register your domain in an accredited domain registrar and point it to your hosting company’s servers.

Tech Tags: seo domains seo+tips small+business internet+marketing

Is giving away articles still a relevant link building technique?

2006-12-25T11:13:00.000-05:00

Writing articles and publishing them in article clearinghouses for others to use as free content was once the easiest way to get links and build up your reputation as an expert in your field . However, with the runaway popularity of blogs, social bookmarking and RSS, giving away articles to get links is not as important or as necessary as it once was. People are now finding it easier to get links by writing a remarkable piece, publishing it in their own blogs, bookmarking it in del.icio.us, digg or other social bookmarking service, and doing some promotion through comments in forums and other blogs.

If your blog is new and not very well known, I still recommend writing some articles and giving them away for others to publish in their own sites. Your articles will have your resource box or by-lines with a link to your blog’s main page, which will help you get some visibility both with search engines and people interested in your topic. As your blog gets more established, however, I recommend to give away articles only occasionally, and to keep your best content for exclusive publication in your blog. If your most remarkable articles are only available in your blog, other bloggers will have to deep link to them directly and not to other sites that may have published it. These spontaneous, deep links to your content have much greater search engine value than the links to your main page coming from free article sites or low value websites.

Tech Tags: link+building blogging internet+marketing entrepreneurship small+business seo

Top 20 Tips for Beginner Bloggers

2006-12-23T23:34:00.000-05:00

Choose a topic that you know, like, and are passionate about. This way you will never get bored and will keep your audience always interested and asking for more.
Pick a topic where there is not a lot of competition. If your topic is too common, try addressing it from a particular angle or focus on a specific niche. For example, there are many sites that talk about cars, but few that specialize in only one brand, and even fewer that focus on only one model. The key to be successful is to find a specific enough topic with a large enough audience.
Open a Blogger account. It is free and easy to use. That way, you won’t have to invest in costlier platforms like MovableType or TypePad before you have the chance of finding out if blogging is for you.
Use a minimalist template, preferably one with a white background. This format is easier to read and pleasant to the eye when you combine it with color pictures.
Use pictures to dress up your blog entries and give your blog a more professional appearance. You can find excellent pictures at a very low cost in istockphoto.com, or even free in Flickr (don’t forget to ask the owner of the picture for permission before you use it).
In one of your blog’s side columns, list six or seven links to authoritative sites related to your topic. When the search engine robots visit your blog, they will find these links and your blog will benefit by association.
Write in simple language, short paragraphs and using bullet points. These are essential guidelines for writing on the web, and will make your posts easier to read and understand.
Always link out to the sources you use to document your posts. This is not only good etiquette but also a way to promote your blog and get links: when the people you link to find out that they’ve been linked to, they will most likely link to your post from their site or blog.
Check your posts for spelling and grammatical errors. This will make your blog look more professional and will increase the probability of other people linking to it.
Use labels to categorize your posts and keep your blog neatly organized. Blogger recently modified its software to allow the use of labels.
Participate actively in forums and discussion groups related to your topic. Find what are the most common questions and provide the answers in your blog. Then, direct forum readers to your blog. Try to also direct forum readers to other resources, or answer without necessarily linking to your blog, sometimes. If not, you may be perceived as self serving and only interested in promoting your blog.
Use HitTail to research topics to write about. HitTail gives you a list of the search terms used by those who came to your blog through a search engine. This search term list will give you ideas for future blog posts.
Allow your blog readers to email your posts to other people. Also, give them the option to bookmark your posts using del.icio.us, furl, or any other social bookmarking service. You can go to AddThis to download a smart button that makes it easy to bookmark your posts. You can find instructions on how to add the button to Blogger here. The easier you make it to share your blog posts, the more relevant traffic your blog will get.
Use Technorati tags at the end of your blog posts. Technorati tags are a way of classifying your blog posts by topic and have them added to Technorati’s index (Technorati is the most important search engine for blogs). Use this automatic Technorati tag generator to avoid having to create the HTML code manually.
Syndicate your blog allowing your visitors to subscribe to your feeds through their favorite aggregator. This way, they will be automatically notified every time you update your blog. You can use this tool to generate attractive syndication buttons, which you can then place in a side column of your blog.
Post frequently. It is the only way to keep your audience interested and coming back. Two or three times a week is ideal. Once a week is the borderline minimum that I recommend to keep your audience engaged and maintain adequate visibility in the search engines.
Keep a large number of posts in the main page of your blog. Search engine robots usually won’t crawl and index all your blog pages, however they will visit your main page frequently. The more content you keep in your main page, the bigger the chance of it popping up in the search engine results pages.
Use Google Adsense to monetize your blog. Blogger lets you add Google Adsense easily and seamlessly in several locations within a page. The best locations are within the content, and on top of the page simulating a navigation bar.
Don’t use Google Adsense excessively, at least at the beginning. Your initial focus should be not to monetize your blog, but to build your audience and establishing your blog's reputation as an authority within your topical community. A blog that is deep on content and lean on ads is more likely to attract the kind of links needed to become relevant to users and search engines.
Once your blog is established and generates abundant, relevant traffic, you can monetize more aggressively, not only with Adsense but also with affiliate links and, why not, maybe even by selling your own products.

You can see a real example of all these tips at work in this blog ;)

Tech Tags: blogging blogging+tips social+bookmarking technorati delicious seo smallbusiness marketing

Adding Videos to your Blog

2006-12-21T13:08:00.000-05:00

You've probably seen blog posts that show a Youtube screen that allows you to play a video clip hosted in Youtube without having to go to the Youtube site. It is really very easy to place Youtube videos in your blog posts. Just go to the Youtube page of the video you want to include in your blog, and you will find a small profile form to the right of the screen with information about that particular video clip. There, you will find two pieces of code: one called "URL", which is the web address of the video clip, that you can use to link to it, and another one labeled "Embed", which shows you the code you have to cut and paste to actually see the screen in your blog.

Just remember that just because a video is in Youtube doesn't mean that it is not copyrighted. Make sure you have the right to use the material before you put it on your blog. Other than Youtube, you can also find videos in Google and Yahoo!.

Tech Tags: blogging small+business entrepreneurship internet+marketing internetmarketing

Online Marketing in 2007

2006-12-19T17:17:00.000-05:00

We're entering 2007 and, as search engines become more sophisticated, small sites with limited authority are finding it increasingly difficult to rank well. Gone are the days when link exchanges or anchor text was all you needed to worry about to increase your visibility and traffic. The web is becoming more social in nature, and sites need to be more interweaved in the community to be successful. There is a great article in Aviva Directory that is especially relavant to us, small internet business owners. Here it is:

Little Known Ways to Brand on the Cheap: 99 Tips for Poor Web Startups

It is about 10 pages long, but there is some great, must-read advice there, so I suggest that you print it, grab a yellow marker and a cup of coffee, sit in your favorite chair and go through it. Then, put it to practice. Enjoy.

Tech Tags: small+business entrepreneurship marketing branding internet+marketing online+marketing

Using Testimonials to Increase Sales

2006-12-13T20:32:00.000-05:00

Testimonials are like referrals: they greatly increase the probability of converting prospects into customers. Bob Leduc, a sales consultant with over 30 years experience in marketing and sales, estimates that sales letters with testimonials perform up to 65% better than the same letters without the testimonials.

To get testimonials, he suggests to give customers a postcard asking them to tell you what did they like about your product or service, and then mail the postcard back to you (postage paid). Most of them will be glad to do that for you. You can then sift through the postcards, select the ones you like the most, and ask those customers for permission to use their feedback as testimonials in your marketing pieces.

Kevin Nunley, an experienced copywriter and web marketer suggests us to "get someone who is a recognized name in your field to say something good about what you sell. Let them mention their own interest in the testimonial. This is why blurbs on book covers go, "Best book I've ever read," Joe Blow, author of How to Get Rich. Joe lends his good opinion as a way to get a mention for HIS book".

Another good way to get testimonials, especially if you're just starting out, is to pay somebody to review your product, service, book, website, or whatever it is that you offer. There is a new service called ReviewMe that does just that... there is a caveat, though: ReviewMe reviews must be unbiased (you cannot pay for a positive review). However, if you practice rule #1 of getting testimonials: "always provide a great service and deliver what you promise", you will do OK.

Finally, here are some more testimonial basics:

Testimonials must describe a specific benefit, for example: "your product allowed me to accomplish three times as much in half the time", instead or "your product is great".
Always include the name, city and/or website address of the person giving the testimonial. You can omit the address, for privacy.
Send the person giving the testimonial a thank you note, or, even better, a small, symbolic gift like a gift certificate of a free sample. However, make sure you do this after you've received authorization to use the testimonial, or it will look like a bribe and may offend the customer, who most likely would have been glad to give you the testimonial with no expectations of receiving anything.

Tech Tags: small+business copywriting marketing

How To Write Effective Sales Letters

2006-12-10T15:35:00.000-05:00

No matter what business we are in, we need to be able to produce marketing material that sells. David Frey, president of Marketing Best Practices Inc. reminds us that we don't have to be award-winning copywriters to create effective sales letters, that writing great sales letters is more of a science than an art, and that anybody can produce compelling sales pieces by following a 12-step template:

1) Get attention
2) Identify the problem
3) Provide the solution
4) Present your credentials
5) Show the benefits
6) Give social proof
7) Make your offer
8) Give a guarantee
9) Inject scarcity
10) Call to action
11) Give a warning
12) Close with a reminder

Read the full article here and learn more about the 12 steps to writing effective sales letters.

Tech Tags: small+business copywriting marketing

Useful Tool: Technorati Tag Generator

2006-12-09T18:27:00.000-05:00

I've written before about the importance of including Technorati tags in blog posts. Until recently, I was crafting the HTML code of the tags by hand, by copying and pasting code of previously used tags and modifying them accordingly. Fortunately, I've found this automatic Technorati tag generator that makes creating Technorati tags a snap. Just type the name of the tags you want to use, press a button, and the tag generator gives you the HTML code to cut and past in your blog posts. Thanks to Fintan Darragh from Market West for this smart and useful tool.

Technorati Tags: blogging technorati

Top 10 Web Design Tips

2006-12-03T19:30:00.000-05:00

Jim Kurkal, the author of Blog to Riches, has put together a handomely illustrated, 14 page PDF document with his top 10 web design tips. He covers timeless topics like how to use color effectively, how to create an attractive layout, why it is important not to forget the usability dimension, etc. Great information and a must read for small business owners who are planning to design a website or revamp an existing one. You can follow this link to pick up the document. Thanks to Jim Kurkal for sharing this valuable information with us.

Leverage: A Key to Success and Wealth

2006-12-03T18:13:00.000-05:00

Here's a quote from Ron Pate, successful real estate investor and author of "Leverage: A Key to Success and Wealth":

"If you carefully study the actions of people that have achieved significant wealth, you will find that one of the key differentiators between them and the average individual is their use of leverage, usually in a variety of ways, while the majority of people tend to conduct themselves in most or all areas of life in generally non-leveraged fashion. Interestingly, the more a person learns to employ leverage successfully, the faster his or her financial growth tends to accelerate. Since people who successfully employ leverage accomplish exponentially more in the same amount of time then people who do not take advantage of this powerful tool, they tend to have more free time and not only greater financial resources, but more balanced and fulfilling lives."

Read this article to learn about the four critical types of leverage you must employ if you are to achieve maximum success in the shortest possible time.

Contributed by Ron Pate.

Technorati Tags: Small Business, Leverage, Entrepreneurship

Use Technorati Tags in Your Blog Posts

2006-12-02T23:40:00.000-05:00

Technorati is one of the largest search engines for blogs. They index content based on categories called tags. Blog posts labeled with a certain tag appear in a specific section of Technorati's site dedicated to that tag, usually hours after being posted. The fact that search engines regularly crawl Technorati's site, and many web surfers discover and subscribe to blogs they find in Technorati, should be reason enough for any blogger to tag their posts.

You can use this Technorati Tag Generator to automatically create the HTML code for the different tags you want to apply to your post.

After you've finished posting and have added tags to your post, you must notify Technorati that you've updated your blog. You do this by going to Technorati's Ping Form and typing the URL of your blog in the input box. Technorati will then crawl your blog and add your new post to its index. You can see my Technorati tags for this post here:

Technorati Tags: Marketing, Internet Marketing, Blogging

Customer Service Excellence

2005-06-10T17:38:00.000-04:00

In no other functional area is the old cliche "there are no problems, only opportunities" more true than in customer service. Research shows that when a company solves a problem that its customers are experiencing, customers tend to return the favor by becoming more loyal to the company than if the problem hadn't existed in the first place.

This and other interesting customer service insights is what Jonathan Byrnes, author of The Bottom Line column for the Harvard Business School Working Knowledge Newsletter shares with us in this article called "Nail Customer Service". You can follow the links in the body of the article to access other interesting pieces by Jonathan showing us, as his bylines promise, more "innovative methods for increasing profit from an existing business without costly new initiatives".

Don't Be A Marketing Day Trader

2005-06-06T22:45:00.000-04:00

Many businesses pursue marketing strategies in the same short sighted, reactionary manner as yesterday's day traders. They never develop a marketing strategy. They do not consider the long term. They lack patience. And, like day traders, they receive the same dismal results. Steven Van Yoder suggests us that rather than chasing the latest get-rich-quick scheme, we take a long term approach and build our reputation first. He explains us how in his article: Don't Be a Marketing Day Trader.

Contributed by Steven Van Yoder.

Technorati Tags: Marketing, Internet Marketing, Small Business

Blog Writing Styles

2005-06-04T00:27:00.000-04:00

Blogs have taken the web by storm. They have allowed all kinds of people, interested in the most varied subjects, to communicate and interact with each other. The posting styles that bloggers use can be very different, and I have identified two major styles.

Some bloggers seem to prefer short posts, usually a personal comment backed by one or more supporting outbound links. Others prefer long posts, usually more elaborate dissertations that may or may not include outbound links.

The short posting format is easy to write and read. Everybody with a strong interest in a certain topic will probably know of many good articles, citations, resources and products related to that topic. It is not hard to launch a blog about that subject, and steer readers in the right direction via regular short comments sprinkled with useful outbound links.

If done properly, this kind of format is conducive to turning a blog into a "hub" (a site that offers many useful outbound links). The drawbacks of this style are that the outbound links will send visitors away. Also, short posts don't usually get many inbound links and are harder to index by the search engines. This means that short posts will usually have trouble ranking very high. On the possitive site, if you post relevant comments regularly and send your visitors to useful resources, they are likely to come back often.

The second format, the long post, is usually an article about a specific topic. Instead of pointing readers to other resources, the post itself is the resource. This type of post is more difficult, since not all bloggers have the ability to write long, articulate, compelling pieces. Long, well written articles, tend to attract inbound links and raise the link popularity of the blog where they are posted, therefore they are more likely to rank high in the search engines. Long posts made of original content will turn a blog into an "authority" (a site that other sites in the same topical community link to).

It is not uncommon to find bloggers using both posting styles. In fact, I believe that the combination of short posts and long posts is the format that is best suited to make the blog more interesting and valuable for readers and search engines alike.

Nick Usborne's Web Copywriting Guide

2005-05-30T10:04:00.000-04:00

Nick Osbourne is one of my favorite web copywriters (you can find some of his great articles in my website's archives). Nick understands what it takes to write effectively and persuasively for the web, and offers his readers a ton of value through his Excess Voice website and his Web Copywriting Blog. I highly recommend subscribing to his newsletter. In times like these, when dime-a-dozen newsletters are chocking our inboxes, Nick's is one of the few that are really worth reading. Fortunately for us, Nick is offering his new guide to Writing for the Web, a 35 page PDF document detailing the 7 biggest challenges faced by web copywriters, free of charge to those who subscribe to his newsletter. These are some quick links to some of Nick's best web pages:

Excess Voice Home:
http://www.excessvoice.com

Excess Voice Newsletter Archives:
http://www.excessvoice.com/archive.htm

Excess Voice Newsletter Subscription Page:
http://www.excessvoice.com/newsletter.htm

Web Copywriting Tips page:
http://excessvoice.com/web-copywriting-tips.htm

I am sure you will find this information useful and that you will add Nick to your A-List of web marketing resouces.

The Two Variables of Website Conversion

2005-05-22T23:19:00.000-04:00

When you sell something through the web, to maximize results you must focus on two variables:

a) Traffic
b) Website conversion

The first variable, traffic, is closely associated with Click Trough Rates (CTR). Whether your source of traffic is a search engine, a link in another website, or a pay per click ad, you must focus on achieving high click through rates of targeted traffic (the kind of visitors most likely to buy your product).

The second variable, website conversion, is measured by the conversion rate (CR), namely, what percentage of your visitors convert into customers.

If you have tons of traffic, but no sales, it may indicate that something is wrong with the quality of the traffic you are attracting, or with the ability of your webpage to convert (maybe due to bad sales copy, unfriendly page design, etc).

I have found a very interesting and well written white paper titled Understanding Website Conversion Rates, that offers a thorough introduction to the subject of Website Conversion. It's author is Kevin Gold, co-founder of Enhanced Concepts, a traffic generation and conversion enhancement strategy company.

He has also written a series of two articles that talk about the issue of conversion in pay per click campaings, which are also worth reading: The Art of Pay Per Click - Part I, and Part II.

The Lifetime Value of a Customer

2005-05-12T23:16:00.000-04:00

This literally can be the most profitable thing you'll ever do for your business and that is to understand exploiting the actual value of your customer. It's been called the Marginal Net Worth and the Lifetime Value.

What is the current worth of one of your customers or prospects? It's the total profit of an average customer over the lifetime that they do business with you. That includes all subsequent sales minus advertising/marketing and your fulfillment expenses.

Let's say the average customer brings you $75 per sale. They re-purchase 3 more times in a year. Their average order amount is $300. On each $300 reorder, you make $150 gross profit The average life lasts 2 years. Every new customer is worth $975.

You reach the 975 by adding the $75 initial profit to the 3 other purchases each year of $300. Only $150 is profit, so $150 times 3 equals $450. If they do that for 2 straight years, that's $900 plus the original $75.

If this is our average customer and they're worth $975 in profit and it only costs you $30 through your advertising/ marketing expenses to get them, every time you spend $30 you receive $975 back.

You would be foolish not to increase your advertising/ marketing and promotional budget to produce as many of these $30 cost customers so you would spend $30 over and over and over again to get $975 back.

Theoretically, you could spend $975 to get that customer because you know they will come back and spend $975 and you will break-even. Of course, we don't want to do this. Remember, this is an average customer. Some will buy more and some will buy less This is an average number.

Now you "know you can spend up to $975. You could just as easily be spending 100% of your $75 profit just to get that first sale because that's just the first sale's profit, and you'll still end up with $975 over the next 2 years.

If you offered to give that $75 service for free and it doubles your customers, it "would double your profits over the next 2 years.

One in 100 business owners think about this You want to spend everything you can justify to bring in a customer as long as that customer costs you less than they earn you. If you can't afford to spend more than the entire profit from the first sale, remember you'll be making money just in a few months from them. Start out spending what your cash flow can justify. After a quarter or several months after their re-order profits come in, then you can step up your ad budget.

About the author Abe Cherian is the founder of Multiple Stream Media, a company that helps online businesses find new prospects and clients, who are anxious to grow their business fast, and without spending a fortune in marketing and automation. http://www.multiplestreammktg.com .

Web's #1 site to find "free resources to Plan, Build, Market, and Maintain your website": http://www.multiplestreammktg.com/resources.html

Does Your Site Deserve a Top Ten Search Engine Ranking?

2005-04-19T06:59:00.000-04:00

New site owners are especially eager to achieve high search engine rankings quickly and usually have unrealistic expectations of what search engine optimization can do for them. Donald Nelson, owner of A1-Optimization, reminds us that the goal of a search engine is to pick the best sites in any given field, and suggests us to ask ourselves five questions to see if our site fits the mark:

1) Are you an industry leader?
2) Does your site look good?
3) Is your site content rich?
4) Is your site and authority site?
5) Has your site been around a long time?

To the degree that you answer "yes" to those questions, you will have more chances of search engine success. Read the full article.

The Long Copy vs. Short Copy Debate

2005-04-17T13:47:00.000-04:00

There is the camp on the hill that say “long content is better”. It’s never about length of copy, it’s always about whether you have communicated your offer to your audience effectively and answered their wants and needs. That’s all. If you can do that in one line then why write a saga about it?

There are some equally ridiculous theories about short copy and using embedded links within page content to get people to move through your website and be subjected to more short pages. People mistakenly assume that if I have to scroll down a page that it’s bad from a usability perspective. Let me ask those people, when was the last time you went to a website page you were really interested in and stopped reading because you had to use the scroll bar?

Read more about the Long Copy vs. Short Copy Debate in this interesting article by Steve Jackson, editor of Conversion Chronicles.

Improve Conversion by Cross-Linking Your Pages

2005-04-10T11:26:00.000-04:00

One of the greatest challenges for online marketers is how to reduce the "bounce rate", meaning the percentage of vistors who leave your site without doing anything. The folks at the Conversion Chronicles noticed that by linking to four of their articles from the body of another article, bounce rates were reduced from 90% to 38%.

This is how this works: Let's assume that an article on your site talks about search engine optimization, and that it touches on the subjects of keyword selection, website architecture and blogs. You could then link to articles on your site that deal with those three topics from the body of the search engine optimization article.

This will give your visitors the option to learn more by following those links (as oppossed to just leaving your site). By doing so, they will delve deeper into your site and will stay longer, giving you more opportunities to educate them, develop trust, and lead them further into the persuasive process.

This technique also offers important search engine optimization benefits, as the search engines will follow the embedded links, add the linked pages to their index, and pass along Pagerank from the linking page to the destination pages.

Five Reasons Why I Like Blogs

2005-04-09T23:26:00.000-04:00

Blogs are probably the easiest way to have a website. With blog software, it literally takes minutes to have a professional looking site up and running. These are the five things I like the most about blogs:

Blogs are easy to create:

You don't need expensive or complicated web editors or web design software to create a blog. Blog vendors offer you a variety of templates you can choose from. Most likely you will find among them one that offers the look and feel you're looking for. Your only web design expense may very well be to pay a graphics artist to design an attractive logo that makes your site unique.

Blogs are easy to maintain:

Blog software allows you to post online, which means that you won't need to bother with FTP software. This also means that you can post anywhere, not just from your own computer. You may be in a hotel room in China, and if it has an internet connection you can log in and update your website from your web-based control panel. Your blog's software will automatically move your most recent post to the top, while archiving older posts by date or by topic, so you don't ever have to bother to move web pages around.

Blogs are search-engine-friendly:

Since blogs assign each post an individual URL address, each of them will have it's own, separate web page. If you take care of making each post very focused on a specific topic and carefully choose the keywords that best describe your post (using them in the post title and post body), they will stand a very good chance of ranking well with the search engines. Also, since blogs tend to be updated regularly, search engines will crawl them often (search engines love fresh content), adding your new posts to their index.

Blogs allow you to interact with your customer base:

The best websites allow your customers to interact with you and give feedback. Since blogs offer you the option of enabling a "comments" field after your posts where readers can give you feedback, your visitors will not only be more inclined to come back, but you will have at your disposal an effective and inexpensive way to get to know your customers better.

Many great blog hosts are free:

There are several excellent services that offer blog hosting for free. The most well known of them is Blogger, a free blog service owned by Google. Signing up takes minutes, it offers many different templates and customization options, and also gives you the option of tying your blog with your Google Adsense account. That way, not only is the service free, but you can also make money. The downside to all these great advantages is that they have encouraged the creation of a huge number of me-too and low quality blogs that don't add value and hardly get any traffic. Don't fall into that trap. Before jumping to create a blog, remember that to be successful you must write about a focused and original topic, or offer a unique perspective on a common theme. In the end, as the cliché says, it all boils down to quality content.

Web Conversion Averages

2005-03-12T09:31:00.000-05:00

Web design and search engine optimization efforts will mean very little if we are not able to convert visitors into customers. Website conversion rates vary widely, depending on several factors, like: kind of product, company's reputation, quality of web copy, web's usability, etc. The folks at the Conversion Chronicles have put together some facts and figures on website conversion that shed some light on the subject. They have also written a free Ebook with lots of useful information to help you increase your conversion rate (highly recommended).

Why Do You Need Good Copywriting

2005-03-05T10:14:00.000-05:00

While getting traffic to your site is important, it means nothing if your website doesn't convert. Other than having the right product for your target audience at the right price, the best way to increase conversion rates is with good copywriting. My two favorite copywriting authors are Robert Warren and Nick Usborne. You can find Robert Warren's articles in article archive page. You can also download his 10 page special report: "Ten Copywriting Blunders That Are Poisoning Your Website". I have also posted one of his most recent articles: "Don't Let Hyped Copywriting Destroy Your Business" on my website. Nick Usborne publishes Excess Voice, where you will find a new copywriting article in every issue. Previous issues of Excess Voice are archived here. Remember, whether your website's conversion objective is to get your readers to subscribe to your newsletter, fill up a form, ask for more information, or buy a product from you, your chances of success will increase significantly if you pay close attention to your web page copy.

Choosing the Right Keywords

2005-02-15T19:43:00.000-05:00

One of the most important parts of search engine optimization is selecting the right keywords (the terms that you expect search engine users will type in the search box to find your page). I was thinking about this today when I saw a billboard of St. Pauli Girl beer in one of Miami's main highways. Around here, they call that brand of beer "La Muñequita" (or "The Little Doll"), in reference to the picture of the blond girl in the beer bottle label. The makers of this beer noticed that most of the hispanic population around here calls Becks beer "Cerveza Llave" or "Key-brand beer", in reference to the picture of the key on the label. So, they followed suit attaching the monicker of "La Muñequita" to their St. Pauli Girl beer, which should make sales among the hispanic market soar. What does all this have to do with selecting the right keywords for your web pages, you may ask? Everything. Selecting the right keywords is not about how you call your stuff. It's about how other people call it and how they look for it. To learn how to select the right keywords for your web pages you can read my Keyword Selection article, or for more help with search engine optimization in general you can read my SEO Tutorial.

Keeping Websites Simple

2005-02-15T19:31:00.000-05:00

I've written often about the virtues of minimalist web design. What users want is content, good navigation and speed. Good web designers should know that the objective of a web page is not just to look pretty but to make sure that nothing gets in the way between users and their objective. This is especially important when the website's main objective is to sell something. Vincent Flanders, the author of Web Pages that Suck also advocates keeping web design simple (although I have to admit that he is much more entertaining than I am!) in these two articles: Everything I know about web design I learned in 1964, and Don't confuse web design with sex.

How to Get Links the Right Way

2005-02-14T21:26:00.000-05:00

Patrick Gavin, from Text-Link-Ads has published an excellent tutorial that explains everything you need to know to get quality links to your site. As you know, links from other sites increase your link popularity and your site's chances of success with the search engines. However, there is a wrong way and a right way to get links. The right way is to make your link profile appear natural to the search engines. With the techniques that Patrick shares for free in this Link Building Tutorial you will learn how. While this tutorial was made with "link buying" in mind (after all, Patrick runs a link buying service) you can substitute the words "link buying" for "link getting" and the advice is equally valid.

Website Branding Tip: Use a Favicon

2005-02-04T17:04:00.000-05:00

A favicon is a small 16x16 pixel icon that you can see on the left of the URL in the address bar of your web browser (Internet Explorer is still not very good at displaying favicons, but Firefox and Netscape have no problem). Favicons have become powerful website branding elements, to the point that many web users admit that, in their eyes, websites that don't have a favicon enjoy less credibility than those that do. There are some sites that have even created galleries of favicons where you can see many examples of favicons that other sites are using. To create your favicon quickly and easily I invite you to read my article on how to create a favicon.

Newsletters and Blogs

2005-02-03T21:58:00.000-05:00

Newsletters are still a great tool to market your business and stay in touch with your customers. However, they are beginning to experience some tough challenges:

50% of all measured email is considered spam. (Brightmail Probe Network)
70% of all email messages will be spam by 2007.(Radicati Group, Feb 2003)
10 out of 12 messages reviewed are considered spam. (Postini.com 10/19/04)
An average user now receives 42 unwanted pitches a day.(Jupiter Research)
Even opt-in ezines are being sent to the junk folder in record numbers by spam filters.

Blogs are emerging as the web tool of choice to communicate with customers. Debbie Weil, the author of the 'Beginners Guide to Business Blogging' gives us some good advice by recommending that we start using a combination of blog and newsletter to start introducing our newsletter readers to the blog format, and eventually to RSS and RSS readers.

No-Follow Tag and Link Popularity

2005-02-01T21:38:00.000-05:00

Google has decided to support a 'no-follow' tag for links originating in blog comments and signatures files. The measure means that getting easy links by posting comments in blogs will become a thing of the past and that webmasters will have to work harder to achieve link popularity. Read our take on the no-follow tag and its effect in link popularity.

Now that we're talking about blogs, you may want to check out 'Beginner's Guide to Business Blogging', by Debbie Weil. This is a concise, to-the-point and fun to read compilation of articles and links to help you understand the power of blogging for business.

Building Customer Engagement

2005-01-26T22:10:00.000-05:00

Customer satisfaction is just the minimum; your goal is to engage your customers. Engaged customers assure a business of sustained and profitable growth. Learn the four emotional building blocks for an engaged customer.

A Leadership Primer

2005-01-25T23:31:00.000-05:00

Here is an oldie but goodie: Colin Powell's leadership primer. This is the list of his 18 leadership tips with an brief explanation of how do they apply to business. I believe that revisiting them briefly at the beginning of every day can really make a difference in the way you conduct your small business, ultimately increasing your chances of success.

Best Web Directories

2005-01-19T21:44:00.000-05:00

Contrary to search engines, which use automatic programs to find, classify and index web pages, directories are lists of websites compiled by human editors, who evaluate the sites for quality prior to organize them in topic specific categories. Directories offer minimal traffic, since most web users rely on search engines to find relevant pages. However, directories play a big role in search engine placement, by increasing your site's link popularity and link reputation. As you know, links to your site from quality, authoritative sites, like good directories, are given significant weight in search engine algorithms, therefore, listing your site in a few quality directories will help your pages achieve high search engine ranking for relevant search terms. Brian Turner has written a great article that explains why it is important to list your site with quality directories, and offers an extensive list of the Best Web Directories. Listing your site in some of them (many of which are free) will increase your Pagerank and your chances of ranking high for relevant search terms.

Find out who your real customer is

2005-01-18T11:22:00.000-05:00

Every day, on my way to work, I listen to this rock station. The two guys running the show regularly endorse some products, among them teddy bears from the Vermont Teddy Bear Company. Now, at first sight, it may seem strange that a radio station that caters mostly to blue collar macho types goes around endorsing teddy bears. If we look deeper, though, it does make sense. Most women love teddy bears, but it's the guys that buy them for them. Sufficient to say that the DJs pitch the bears as "something that will help you get laid" (pretty raunchy, it's true, but very effective)... You can bet that all those truck drivers and contractors listening to the show are snapping up those teddybears as fast as they can get their credit card out of their pocket! The moral of the story is that the end user is not always our only customer. Our real customer is the buyer, the decision maker. If we forget to find out who is really buying our product, and focus our marketing on them, we may very well be barking at the wrong tree.

301 Redirects and SEO

2005-01-16T21:48:00.000-05:00

Whenever you change the URL of your pages, or register additional domain names that point to your main site (like when you set up mysite.net and mysite.org to point to mysite.com), you will have to implement some sort of redirection. 301 redirects are the only kind of redirection endorsed by the search engines. I have just written an article on 301 redirects that addresses when to use them, why they are important for search engines and how to implement a 301 redirect. You can read it here: http://www.theinternetdigest.net/archive/301-redirects-seo.html

SEO and Copywriting

2005-01-15T11:16:00.000-05:00

A common misconception in internet marketing is to have the expectation that SEO is all we need to be successful online. In reality, you need to do much more. Search engine optimization will give you traffic, but it is ultimately your copywriting that will make the sale. While it is very important to know how to write for the search engines, it is also very important to know how to write for humans, since they will be the ones making the purchase. There are some good resources out there for online copywriting. Some sites I regularly visit are Nick Usborne's Excess Voice (you can subscribe to his free newsletter), and Robert Warren's website (I just posted this copywriting article by him on my website). Another good copywriting resource is Kevin Nunley's website, where you will also find hundreds of bite-sized internet marketing tips across a wide variety of topics.

Branded Email Address

2005-01-12T13:47:00.000-05:00

Every time I see a small business using an email address like: business@aol.com or myname@bellsouth.com I think: what a wasted branding opportunity! Email addresses with your ISP domain to the right of the @ look unprofessional. It is very, very easy to have an email address that reads myname@mydomain.com. You don't even need to have a website. Some time ago I wrote an article on how to set up your branded email address. If you are still using your ISP email address, you may want to read it and set up your own branded email address. Good luck!

Character Driven Marketing

2005-01-12T13:46:00.000-05:00

"Much of modern marketing practice is superficial and artificial rubbish, motivated entirely by profits with little to no genuine regard for the people these profits are being harvested from. The general public are becoming increasing weary of these false messages and are starting to look for alternatives. The only kind of marketing, though, that truly engages the hearts and minds of your potential customers, and leaves them feeling cared for, satisfied and understood is based on a set of values that are obvious, but all too often forgotten - integrity, honesty and honour. These are the core elements of genuine marketing." Contributed by Tamara Lyster. Read her full article on Character Driven Marketing. Technorati Tags: Marketing, Internet Marketing, Small Business

Welcome to Resouce Box

2005-01-12T11:37:00.000-05:00

This is my first post. I have just created this blog to complement my small business internet marketing site . Here is an interesting article about how your website design must project the right image for your business and reinforce your brand.